I love writers all across the board, but one who influenced me very directly at the beginning was Mary Renault.

Writing is writing, and stories are stories. Perhaps the only true genres are fiction and nonfiction. And even there, who can be sure?

The bitterness of joy lies in the knowledge that is cannot last. Nor should joy last beyond a certain season, for, after that season, even joy would become merely habit.

She looked, and a scarlet butterfly flew away from her, away down the length of the tower, and then another, another, an unraveling scarf of butterflies like winged blood.

Archetypes are universal, and, in subtle or extravagant ways, interchangeable.

We need the expressive arts, the ancient scribes, the storytellers, the priests.

The soul is a magician. Only living flesh hampers it.

When I am fascinated by something, I like to play with it.

I submitted manuscripts to publishers. This was not so much a feeling that I should be published as a wish to escape the feared and hated drudgery of normal work.

No one is ever ordinary.

Maidens who stay maidens turn into saints. Old women become sorceresses. Tough jobs, both of these.

Anybody's true nature is bullshit. There is no human soul. Emotion is bullshit. Love is bullshit.

Dance, Live, Sing, Cry, Love, Travel and Love again, until the day you have to stop

The best way to destroy your enemies is to make them adopt your worldview

You are destined to become the peer of those you most respect because the greatness you perceive in them is your own.

The saint endeavors to recover a gift which he has lost; the sinner tries to obtain something which was never his. In brief, he repeats the Fall.

Finn regarded pesky little things like wedding bands, engagement rings, and jealous, hulking menfolk more as amusing challenges than immovable obstacles that could be hazardous to his health.

Goodness is a process of becoming, not of being. What we do over and over again is what we become in the end.

Don King doesn't care about black or white. He just cares about green.

If you're not a Christian, you're going to hell. It's not unloving to say that. it's unloving not to say that.

Most things I worry about never happen anyway.